Beautiful Bones – Episode 4

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AW SHIT BEAUTIFUL BONES HAD A REASONABLE EPISODE. Yep, either my standards are falling fast or Beautiful Bones is actually improving, because I legitimately enjoyed this episode. And it wasn’t because of subtle changes in writing or whatnot – the two-parter structure just fits this show so, so, so much better. It is really damn hard bordering on impossible to tell a satisfying, atmospheric, character-focused mystery in twenty minutes, but in forty-ish? Yeah, you can get there. So we got more nice character moments, more actual mystery elements, and more atmosphere than ever before. Great work, Beautiful Bones. Now please don’t immediately go back to your old formula and continue to suck at it.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!

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Fall 2015 – Week 4 in Review

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It’s that time again! We had a reasonable crop of episodes this week, with four out of my six active series offering solid episodes, and one of the last two never promising to offer a single solid episode in the first place. I think at this point it’s safe to say Iron-Blooded Orphans is the breakout star of the season – it’s not the flashiest show, but it’s just absolutely solid in everything it does, full of strong characters and well-chosen dramatic turns and plenty of threads I’m excited to see through. Other shows are more tentative, but still enjoyable so far – in particular, I feel like it’d be easy for either The Perfect Insider or Utawarerumono to fall apart, but I’m still having a fine time with them so far. And One Punch Man is starting to wear out its single joke, but I’ve heard the original series picks up from here out, so I’m hopeful this is just a temporary lull. Overall, this isn’t the flashiest season, and certainly can’t compare to the year’s stellar first half, but I’ve got enough that I’m enjoying that I can’t really complain. But that’s enough news in brief, let’s get to it and RUN ‘EM DOWN!

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Inari Kon Kon – Review

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Time for another show review! This time we’ve got Inari Kon Kon, which was… a show, I guess? It was watchable, but not much more – this one felt very overtly and almost awkwardly like a direct advertisement for the original manga, given its adaptation made zero use of anime as a medium and basically all the conflicts resolved in “go read the manga, available at a location near you.” That said, it was pretty much a harmless experience all around, and there were some cute moments between the central characters. It flopped as a romance or drama, but did reasonably well in depicting some friendships.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!

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Owarimonogatari – Episode 4

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Owarimonogatari continues in an episode that was basically 50% Ougi being sinister and 50% Hanekawa kicking ass. So, essentially a perfect episode.

Alright, maybe not a perfect episode. In spite of this week’s adventure foregrounding my favorite character in anime period, it wasn’t nearly as visually interesting as the stuff at Oikura’s old home. And we’re clearly in a build-up stage at the moment, with all the various conflicts just sort of simmering as things move back towards Oikura. Hanekawa was great, and some of the ways the show articulated the spell Ougi casts over Araragi were great, but I’m definitely ready for the show to hurry up and get to the next Oikura confrontation. This was a great idea for an episode, but in execution not exactly a highlight.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!

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The Many Lessons of Gatchaman Crowds

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New essay time! Jeez, I’ve been spoiling you guys lately. There was a bit of a lull when I was getting used to managing my time for ANN, but now you’re getting articles on idols, articles on classic OVAs, and now an article on Gatchaman Crowds. I wrote about Gatchaman’s first season way back when it ended (jeez, that was two years now), but I think I’ve gotten a little bit better at consolidating my points since then. This isn’t a breakdown of every single thing that happens – this is a condensing of the core themes that emerge in different ways across both seasons. I hope you enjoy it, and may our lady Hajime shine upon you!

The Many Lessons of Gatchaman Crowds

Gatchaman Crowds

The Perfect Insider – Episode 3

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The Perfect Insider returns, and this week we finally dive into some actual mystery meat. That was poorly phrased. Not in the cafeteria lunch terms, but in… well, you get it.

Anyway, this was a fine episode all around. Magata’s alleged death kind of throws a wrench in my ideas about where the story was going – I figured it’d end up being more about the dynamic between Moe and Magata, but unless Magata really is performing quite an impressive magic trick here (perhaps involving her “sister”), it’ll likely be more focused on revealing both Moe and Magata’s past. In spite of losing that thread, I enjoyed where this episode went – the dynamic between Moe and Souhei felt more equal this time, and the mystery stuff never overwhelmed either the character material or the atmosphere. The show still feels very confident in what it’s doing.

You can check out my full writeup over at ANN, or my episode notes below!

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Beautiful Bones – Episode 3

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Beautiful Bones has returned! And it’s still garbage, don’t watch it.

Seriously, it’s just garbage. Not even interesting garbage. Just a bad show.

Here’s my writeup of the third episode. Notes below, somehow.

Now to sleep off the headache I get from writing about writing this bad.

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Fall 2015 – Week 3 in Review

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Aw dang it’s the week in review what the fuck do we even have to talk about. Well actually, there’s plenty to talk about now; it’s a relatively new season, there are far more legitimately watchable shows than The Season That Shall Not Be Named, and last week’s awkward halfway point between preview week and the usual fare means we’ve got a sizable glut of anime to get through. I actually surprised myself last Sunday – I was doing my usual accounting of what was about to air, and suddenly realized I had three friggin’ shows to choose between for my first watch, all of which I actually wanted to see. Following a season where “you know what, this snake girl is actually pretty cool” was close to the top end of anime discourse, that’s a pretty nice place to be. Between Owarimonogatari, The Perfect Insider, and… well, I guess any more favoritism than that would be telling. So let’s get started this list of ‘well friggin’ crap these might actually be worth watching’ shows. Let’s RUN ‘EM DOWN!

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September 2015 Patreon Roundup

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Hey all! So I’ve finished answering all of last month’s Patreon questions, and figured it might be a good idea to start linking those mini-essays over here. You may remember I attempted to catalog some of my longer ask.fm answers here a while back, but I think this formatting will be a lot more manageable. I actually put a pretty significant amount of work into the questions I get, and since there’s no schedule to their release, unless you’re checking my ask.fm page consistently you’re very likely to miss a pretty thorough response. Fortunately, on my end I have all the tools I need to keep track of specific Patreon answers, so I figured it’d be good to make them a bit more available. I’ll be starting with the most recent set of answers today, and then going forward I’ll hopefully fill in the older missing ones as I catalog new months.

I’ve included links to all my specific September responses below the cut. And as always, if you’d like a question of your own answered, my Patreon is thataway. Hope you enjoy!

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The Ancient Magus’ Bride, Volume 2 – Review

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I’m back on the manga train with more Ancient Magus’ Bride, as I review a second volume just as magical as the first. This is one of those manga where it’s hard to think of bad things to say about it – Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer is kind of scrappy, and even Bride’s Story can sometimes dither, but Ancient Magus’ Bride is just a beautiful production through and through. Hopefully that comes across in my review – I was going for a pretty specific tone in this one, and I think I hit it.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!

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